Hyper-V built into Windows for free
May 22, 2019
Hyper-V built into Windows for free

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Hyper-V
We have configured stand-alone Hyper-V servers and failover Hyper-V clusters. All of our servers are currently running under Hyper-V. From a cost perspective, all servers running windows under the Hyper-V node are free as long as you have a Windows datacenter license. This helps us keep costs down, and allows us to spin up new servers without additional licensing costs for the OS.
- Live migration.
- High availability.
- Easily create new VMS.
- Dynamically adjust RAM.
- Troubleshooting can be difficult.
- Occasional live migration failures are causing all other VM's to fail.
- A fair bit of setup is needed to get a cluster configured and up.
- No cost for VM OS's when running Windows data center on the Hyper-V Node.
- Windows standard comes with 2 VM guest OS licenses.
- Allows you to run an entirely Microsoft environment, no VMware or other training required.
I've used VMware and Hyper-V. Due to Hyper-V being included with Windows for no extra charge, it makes it the default option for us. Why spend money for a 3rd-party solution when Microsoft provides one for free with the purchase of their server operating systems? It's also available for free inside Pro level and higher versions of Windows 10.